Senior writer for The Age

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has accused the Abbott government of wanting to cut wages to ''Third-World conditions'' at SPC Ardmona.

It comes after The Age revealed that the federal government pressed SPC Ardmona to slash pay for workers by as much as 40 per cent under a bailout plan.

A level-two production worker at SPC Ardmona would have had their pay reduced from about $50,000 a year to about $33,000. ''How desolate and sterile is the vision of the Abbott government that they say that someone on $50,000 should take a pay cut to $33,000 a year,'' Mr Shorten said.